Broken Gamebooks #10: Spellbreaker / Curse of the Mummy

 

Here're two curious ones, and no mistake. These two Fighting Fantasy books were both written by Jonathan Green, and both published by Puffin towards the end of the original series' life. They're also agreed to be two of the more challenging entries in the series, not least because of the large number of extremely difficult combats they both contain. Green is one of the few non-Jackson/Livingstone authors to have had his books reprinted by Wizard for the revived series, and these books were felt to be so difficult that a few changes were made to them in an attempt to make them easier, principally in reducing the stats for some of the enemies you face. However, in doing so, a few new errors are introduced!

Let's tackle Spellbreaker first, pictured above as both its original nineties form and its noughties reprint. The Wizard edition actually corrects several errors from the Puffin edition: section 83 now directs to 300, whereas it sent you to the wrong reference in the original, and sections 173 and 355 (which are both part of the same encounter with a group of guards) now both give you the option of giving yourself up by turning to 25. Well done lads. However, it seems that section 120 should also give you the option of turning to 25, and that hasn't been added to the Wizard version.

So, Spellbreaker is done and dusted (all of the other changes relate to slightly reducing the SKILL and/or STAMINA of various foes). Now we move on to Curse of the Mummy.

  

You may notice we now have three pictures. Wizard relaunched their Fighting Fantasy range in a bid to increase sales, so from left to right we have the original Puffin edition, Wizard's 'Series 1' version, and Wizard's 'Series 2' version, also known as the 'shield' design. Note that all three have basically the same cover art, making this one of the very few FF books to be reprinted by Wizard and never get a new cover (I believe the only other one is Appointment with F.E.A.R.)

In Wizard's Series 1 version, the sorcerer you fight in section 50 has had his SKILL reduced from 10 to 9. However, in section 307, which is where you first meet the Sorcerer, he has a SKILL of 10 when he attempts to cast a fireball at you, and this reference to his SKILL wasn't corrected. Wizard's Series 2 version corrects this so his SKILL is now 9 in all cases.

In section 242, in the original version the Giant Scorpion has a SKILL of 10, which was reduced to 8 for both Wizard's reprints. However, the very same section has multiple other references to its SKILL - saying that you should treat it as being two separate enemies (on account of its two pincers) each with SKILL 10, and that it has a special attack if it ever rolls 22 for its Attack Strength (that is, it rolls a 12 on the dice and you add its SKILL of 10 to that). The other references aren't corrected in the Series 1 edition, but again, the Series 2 version correctly has the Scorpion's SKILL as 8 in all cases.

So far, so good, you might think - Wizard took the opportunity of the 'Series 2' reprint to correct the errors they'd introduced. But that doesn't explain the following (from the Fighting Fantasy Wiki):

• In the "Background" section, Puffin and Wizard Series 1 both have "[the] twin mountain peaks, are a haven for..." Wizard Series 2 reads "area a haven for".
• In section 307, a reference to turning to 335 (if the Sorcerer's fireball hits you) has changed to 353 in Wizard's Series 2 printing, despite being correctly given in Puffin and Series 1.
• The Snapperfish at section 280 also had their special abilities reduced for Wizard Series 1, but there wasn't another place where these were given, so no error was introduced (unlike the Sorcerer and the Scorpion). However, in Wizard's Series 2 version, the Snapperfishes' STAMINA values are now wrongly labelled as SKILL!

So what's going on? If you remember the Broken Gamebooks for Creature of Havoc, you will recall that that particular book had a game-breaking error in its Puffin copy, which was fixed for Wizard Series 1, but had somehow crept back into the Wizard Series 2 printing. This indicated that the Wizard Series 2 reprints went back to the Puffin originals, rather than the first round of Wizard printings. Presumably somebody remembered the revisions to Curse of the Mummy, and hence that volume did use the Wizard Series 1 text as the base for its Series 2 reprint. Note that two of the three errors introduced to the Series 2 version are from sections which were revised for Series 1, and one of them had to be revised again for Series 2 to correct the error introduced by changing the Sorcerer's SKILL. Somebody may have taken issue with the description of the twin mountain peaks when doing the Series 2 version and decided it should read something like "[the] twin mountain peaks are an area a haven for" but screwed up somewhere along the line, but that's the only theory I have.

There are a couple of other changes to Curse in the Wizard books, and all but one is to reduce the SKILL and STAMINA of various monsters, or their special abilities (e.g. you originally had to fight the Snapperfish all at once, now you fight them one at a time, or you only have to reduce your Attack Strength by 1 instead of 2). There's only one change to the original text, which is the description of the Brass Telescope you have the option of buying at a market stall in section 112. The original reads "This finely crafted telescope allows you to see things that are a long way off," but both Wizard printings change this to "This finely crafted telescope is one of the most incredible examples of the metalworker's art that you have ever seen." I happen to prefer the revised version to the original, but it's still a slightly curious thing to single out for change.

Spellbreaker was not reprinted by Wizard for Series 2, and neither has been reprinted by Scholastic... yet.

Just to finish off, here's a little side-note that's too small for its own article, but is worth noting and is vaguely appropriate here. Many of the later books in the series (including these two, and most of Green's other books - it was also a popular tactic of Steve Jackson and Keith Martin) used an alphanumeric code system for certain puzzles. Say, for example, you need to tell someone a password. You convert the word into a number by saying A = 1, B = 2, C = 3 and so on up to Z = 26, then adding up all the values. So if the password is "Zagor", then 26 + 1 + 7 + 15 + 18 = 67, and hence you need to turn to section 67. There would be other variations on this, such as having to work out a number hidden somewhere - for example in Masks of Mayhem, you are told at the end that someone has betrayed you, and if you think you know who that traitor is then you will know which number to turn to. The traitor in question is your advisor, Ifor Tynin, so you need to turn to section 40. Acrostics and riddles were also popular with some authors.

When the books were being translated to other languages, in many cases the translators did not bother to preserve the information and just converted everything directly. Hence, the alphanumeric codes would end up pointing the reader to a completely different (and irrelevant) section, or the hidden information would be completely lost, rendering the book totally unplayable. There were two exceptions to this: the German and Hungarian translations, which both painstakingly made sure the new version would still have the relevant information by writing up new riddles or names and re-engineering the gamebooks so everything fitted together. Both countries have very large RPG scenes, and the latter in particular has several publishers specifically dedicated to role-playing material and gamebooks, one of which was responsible for translating the Fighting Fantasy books. I have yet to track down any German or Hungarian copies of the books, but I would be interested in seeing any examples of this.